The quarterback of a reigning small-school division state champion who has never lost a game as a full-time starter and has a 4.2 grade-point average.

It may sound like the premise for a character on a new fall TV show, but in this case, it's reality for Kirtland senior Scott Eilerman. It's a special episode he hopes doesn't end any time soon.

Eilerman and the Hornets are back in the Division V state final four this weekend, with a semifinal encounter against Baltimore Liberty Union on Saturday at Fawcett Stadium in Canton, in pursuit of the program's second straight state championship.

His journey to being 28-0 the last two seasons as the Kirtland signal-caller -- throwing for 2,014 yards and 26 touchdowns during that span and recording 672 yards and five scores on the ground alone this fall -- started in all likelihood not quite in the manner he was expecting.

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In 2010, Eilerman was a backup to senior standout Paul Guhde as the Hornets were putting together an undefeated campaign. Then, in a D-V regional semifinal against Cuyahoga Heights, Guhde suffered what wound up being a season-ending knee injury.

As a result, Eilerman received a quick introduction to big-time playoff football.

"As a sophomore, you're not really expecting to play when you've got a quarterback as good as Paul," Eilerman said. "That freak accident happened -- he stepped on the turf wrong and blew out his knee. You're not expecting it, and then once it hits you, it all comes onto you at once.

"When we found out Paul wasn't going to be playing the next week against Ursuline -- they obviously had won a state title the year before -- I was nervous that whole week. It was the first time I played a lot in a varsity game. At that stage, in the regional final against the best team in the state, it was definitely really nerve-wracking."

It was an experience that did not end well, as the Fighting Irish won, 48-0, on their way to a third straight D-V state title.

That sight of Ursuline, though, was not the first nor the last.

In fact, it has been a theme throughout Eilerman's association with the program.

He remembers well in 2008, sitting in the stands at Mollenkopf Stadium in Warren as an eighth-grader with current fellow seniors Damon Washington and Bobby Matthews as Kirtland gave the Fighting Irish all they could handle before falling in a heartbreaker, 18-17.

"Coming in the next year as freshmen," Eilerman said, "we pretty much told ourselves, 'We don't want that to happen to us.' "

Since his class' arrival in 2009, Kirtland has gone 47-4, with a 35-game regular-season winning streak and just five games decided by one possession -- three in 2010 and two this fall.

Eilerman's growth guiding the Hornets' vaunted offense has been clear the last two seasons. By its own admission, Kirtland's offense wasn't completely clicking early in 2011. But once it did, it was lights out all the way to its first state championship, a 28-7 win over Coldwater in which Eilerman ran for a season-high 62 yards at a pretty opportune time.

"Last year's playoff run, those five games, I don't think he made a mistake," Hornets coach Tiger LaVerde said. "I don't know that he had even one turnover or made a bad decision with the football. So I think those five games right there, you gain confidence.

"Going into this year, having just come off a 15-0 season, if you're not confident then, you'll never be confident. So this year, he is confident. He is mature. He is a great leader."

Never was that leadership needed more than Saturday down, 24-0, in a D-V regional final to -- guess who -- Ursuline.

Eilerman ran for a season-high 134 yards on six carries -- extending his total offense for the year to 1,656 yards through the air and on the ground -- as Kirtland emerged from the brink for a 38-37 win that perhaps exorcised some demons in the process.

"It was weird because the first time I played in a big-time varsity game it was against Ursuline, and last week was almost my last time playing in a varsity game," said Eilerman with a laugh. "It was good that we did make it in our last time as seniors.

"It was kind of full circle."

From that night in 2010 as a sophomore against Ursuline, which he said jokingly he "got through it alive.

"And now I'm here."

To the precipice of a resume any quarterback would love to have -- in a TV sitcom or in real life -- two wins away from being a 30-0 two-time state champion.

"Winning 28 straight games is huge," Eilerman said. "We've won 35 straight regular-season games. I have stepped back, looked at that and went, 'Wow. This is an unbelievable football program.'

"But every week, we know we have work to do."

(Note: Full audio interviews with Eilerman and LaVerde can be found here.)